Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic Part 9

CHAPTER V.

FALLACIES OF GENERALISATION.

This cla.s.s includes whatever errors of generalisation are not mere blunders, but arise from some wrong general conception of the inductive process. Only a few kinds can be noted. 1. Under this Fallacy come generalisations which _cannot_ be established by experience, e.g.

inferences from the order in the Solar System to other and unknown parts of the universe; and also, except when a particular effect would contradict either the laws of number and extension, or the universal law of causality, all inferences from the fact that _we_ have never known of a particular effect to its impossibility. 2. Those generalisations also are fallacious which resolve, either, as in early Greece, all things into one element, or, as often in modern times, impressions on the senses, differing in quality, and not merely in degree, into the same; e.g. heat, light, and (through vibrations) sensation, into motion; mental, into nervous states; and vital phenomena, into mechanical or chemical processes. In these theories, one fact has its laws applied to another. It may possibly be a condition of that other; but even then the mode in which the new fact is actually produced would have to be explained by its own law, and not by that of the condition. 3. Again, generalisations got by Simple Enumeration, fall under this Fallacy. That sort of Induction 'precari concludit,' says Bacon, 'et periculo exponitur ab instantia contradictoria, ... ex his tantummod quae praesto sunt p.r.o.nuncians.' The ancients used it; and in questions relating to man and society, it is still employed by _practical_ men. By it men arrived at the various examples of the formula, _Whatsoever has never been_ (e.g. a State without artificial distinctions of rank; negroes as civilised as the white race) _will never be_; which, being inductions without elimination, could at most form the ground only of the lowest empirical laws. Higher empirical laws can be got, when a phenomenon presents (as no negation can) a series of regular gradations, since something may then be inferred from the observed as to the un.o.bservable terms of the series. Such is the law of man's necessary progression, in contradiction to the above formula. But even this better generalisation is similarly, though not as grossly, fallacious as the preceding, when, though not itself a cause, but only a summary expression for the general result of all the causes, it is accepted as _the_ law of human changes, past and even future. So, empirical generalisations, from present to past time, and from the character of one nation to that of another, are similarly fallacious when employed as causal laws. 4. This Fallacy occurs, not only when an empirical is confounded with a causal law, but when causation is inferred improperly. The mistake sometimes lies in inferring _a posteriori_ that one fact must be the cause of another (e.g. the National Debt, or some special inst.i.tution, of England's prosperity), because of their casual conjunction; at other times, in a.s.suming _a priori_ that one of several coexisting agents is the sole cause, and then deducing the effects from it exclusively. The latter is properly False Theory. It has been exemplified in medicine by the tracing of all diseases by one school, to viscidity of the blood, by another, to the presence of some acid or alkali, and, in politics, by the a.s.sumption that some special form of government or society is absolutely good. 5. In False a.n.a.logies (which fall under this Fallacy) there is no pretence of a conclusive induction. The argument from a.n.a.logy is the inferring, in the absence of evidence either way, that an object resembles a second object in one point, because it is seen to resemble it in another point, which either is not known to be connected with the first by causation (as, that the planets must be inhabited because they obey the same astronomical laws with the earth, which is), or which is known to be, not, indeed, its cause or its effect, but either one of a set of conditions, which together are its cause, or an occasional effect of its cause. Now, persons (usually from poverty, not from luxuriance, of imagination) often overrate the weight of true a.n.a.logies; but the fallacy specially consists in inferring resemblance in one point from resemblance in another, when the evidence is not only not in favour of, but even positively against the connection of the two by way of causation. It is so in the argument in favour of absolutism, on the ground of its resemblance to paternal government in the one point of irresponsibility, as though the a.s.sumed benefits of paternal rule flowed from this quality. Similarly fallacious are the inferences, through a.n.a.logies, from the liability to decay of bodies natural to that of bodies politic; from the supposed need of a _primum mobile_ in nature to that of an irresponsible power in a state; and from the effects of a decrease of a country's corn to the effects of a decrease of its gold (the utility of which, but not of corn, depends on its value, and its value on its scarcity). Such, also, were the Pythagorean inferences that there is a music of the spheres, because the intervals between the planets have the same proportion as the divisions of the monochord; and, again, that the movements of the stars as being _divine_ must be regular, because so are those even of orderly _men_. So, Aristotle and other ancients supposed perfection to obtain in all natural facts, because it appeared to exist in some; and so, the Stoics tried to prove the equality of all crimes by reference to various similes and metaphors (as, that the man held half an inch below the surface will be drowned as certainly as the man at the bottom of the sea; and that want of skill is shown as much in steering a straw-laden boat as a treasure galleon on to the rocks). But, in fact, the connection by causation between the known and the inferred resemblance, which is _a.s.sumed_ by these metaphors, is the very thing which they are brought to prove. The real use of such cases of a.n.a.logy as metaphors is that they serve, not as an argument, but as an a.s.sertion that one exists. Though they cannot prove, they sometimes suggest the proof, and point to a case in which the same grounds for a conclusion have been found adequate. Such are d'Alembert's cla.s.sification of successful politicians as either eagles or serpents; and the statement, as an argument for education, that, in waste land weeds will spring up; and such is _not_ Bacon's inference from the levity of floating straw to the worthlessness of the _extant_ scientific works of the ancients.

The great source of fallacious generalisation is bad cla.s.sification, by which things with no, or no important, common properties, are grouped together. Worst is it, when a word which commonly signifies some definite fact is applied to other facts only slightly similar. Bacon (who has himself thus erred in his enquiries into heat) specifies, as examples of this, the various applications (got, by unscientific abstraction, from the original sense) of the word 'wet,' to flame, air, dust, and gla.s.s, as well as to water. The application by Plato, Aristotle, and other ancients, of the terms Generation, Corruption, and [Greek: kinesis] to many heterogeneous phenomena, with a mixture of the ideas belonging to them severally, caused many perplexities, which may be noticed under Fallacies of Confusion.

CHAPTER VI.

FALLACIES OF RATIOCINATION.

These fallacies (to which the name _Fallacy_ is commonly applied exclusively) would generally be detected if the arguments were set out formally; and the value of the syllogistic rules is, that they force the reasoner to be aware what it is that he is really a.s.serting. The frequent errors in processes such as Conversion and Opposition, which are in appearance, though not in reality, inferences from premisses, may for convenience be here referred to. Such are the simple conversion of an universal affirmative; the corresponding error in a hypothetical proposition of inferring the truth of the antecedent from that of the consequent; and the confusing of a contrary with a contradictory, which amounts, in practice, to mistaking the reverse of wrong for right. But fallacies of Ratiocination properly lie in syllogisms. They commonly resolve themselves, when in a single syllogism, into the having more than three terms, whether covertly, as through an undistributed middle, or an illicit process, or avowedly. But the most dangerous and the commonest of these fallacies arise in a chain of argument from _changing the premisses_. One of the obscurer forms of this is the fallacy _a dicto secundum quid_ (i.e. with a qualification, or condition, expressed, or, more usually, understood) _ad dictum simpliciter_. Thus, the Mercantile Theory was in favour of prohibiting all trade which tends to carry out more money than it brings in, on the ground that money is riches, though it is so only if the money can be _freely_ spent. Such, too, was the argument (used to support the doctrine that t.i.thes fall on the landlord) that, because now the rent of t.i.the-free land exceeds that of t.i.thed land, the rent from the latter would be increased by the abolition of all t.i.thes. There was a similar fallacy in the use of the maxim, that individuals are the best judges of their pecuniary interests, against Mr. Wakefield's scheme for concentrating settlers.

Cases in which the condition of _time_ is dropped, fall under this same particular fallacy, as, when the maxim that prices always find their level, is construed as meaning that they are always _at_ their level. It is the same with the reasoning (especially in political and social subjects), upon principles, which are true in the absence of all modifying causes, as though no such causes _could_ exist. Other a.n.a.logous fallacies are those _a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid_ (the converse of the preceding), and _a dicto secundum quid ad dictum secundum alterum quid_.

CHAPTER VII.

FALLACIES OF CONFUSION.

Under this head come all fallacies which arise, not so much from a false estimate of the probative force of known evidence, as from an indistinct conception what the evidence is.

1. Thus, where there is an ambiguous middle, or a term used in different senses in the premisses and in the conclusion, the argument proceeds as though there were evidence to the point, when, in fact, there is none.

This error does not occur much in direct inductions, since the things themselves are there present to the senses or memory; but chiefly, in Ratiocination, where we are deciphering our own or others' notes. The ambiguity arises very often from a.s.suming that a word corresponds precisely in meaning with the root itself (e.g. _representative_), or with cognate words from the same root, called _paronymous_ words (as, _artful_, with _art_). Other examples of ambiguities are; 'Money,'

which, meaning both the currency and also capital seeking investment, is often thought to be scarce in the former sense, because scarce in the latter; 'Influence of Property,' which, signifying equally the influence of respect for the power for good, and of fear of the power for evil, which is possessed by the rich, is represented as being a.s.sailed under its former form when attacked really only under the latter; 'Theory,'

which, because applied popularly to the accounting for an effect apart from facts, is ridiculed, even when expressing, as it properly does, the result of philosophical induction from experience; 'The Church,' which refers (as in the question of the inviolability of _Church_ property) sometimes to the clergy alone, sometimes to all its members; 'Good,' in the Stoic argument that virtue, as alone _good_ (in the Stoic sense), must therefore include freedom and beauty, because these are _good_ (in the popular sense). So, the meaning of 'I' shifts from _the laws of my nature_ to _my will_, in Descartes' _a priori_ argument for the being of a G.o.d, viz. that there must be an external archetype whence I got the conception, for if _I_ (i.e. _the laws of my nature_) made it, _I_ (i.e.

_my will_, and not, as it should consistently be, _the laws of my nature_) could unmake it; but _I_ (i.e. _my will_) cannot. In the Free-Will controversy, 'I' is used ambiguously for volitions, actions, and mental dispositions, and 'Necessity' both for _Certainty_ and for _Compulsion_. From the application of 'same,' 'one,' 'identical,' which primarily refer to a single object, to several objects because _similar_, grew up (for the purpose of accounting for the supposed _oneness_ in things said to have the _same_ nature or qualities) both the Platonic _Ideas_, and also the _Substantial Forms_ and _Second Substances_ of the Aristotelians, even though the latter did see the distinction between things differing both _specie_ and _numero_, and those differing _numero_ only. And thence, too, sprang Berkeley's proof of the existence of a Universal Mind from the supposed need of such a Being to harbour, in the interval, the idea, which, one and the same (really, only two _similar_ ideas), a man's mind has entertained at two distinct times. The difficulty in _Achilles and the Tortoise_ arises from the use of _infinity_, or, _for ever_, in the premisses, to signify a finite time which is infinitely divisible, and, in the conclusion, to signify an infinite time. Thus, again, 'right' is used to express, both what others have no right to stop a man from doing, and also what it is not against his own duty to do; both what people are ent.i.tled to expect from, and also what they may enforce from others. The Fallacy of Composition and Division, i.e. the use of the same term in a syllogism, at one time in a collective, at another in a distributive sense, is one of the Fallacies of Ambiguous Terms. Examples of it are the arguments, that _great men_ (collectively) could be dispensed with, because the place of any particular great man might have been supplied (i.e., in fact, by some other great man); and, that a high prize in a lottery may be reasonably expected (by _a certain individual_, viz.

oneself), because a high prize is commonly gained (_by some one or other_).

2. In Pet.i.tio Principii, the premisses are not even verbally sufficient for the conclusion, since one premiss is either clearly the same as the conclusion, or actually proved from it, or not susceptible of any other proof. Men commonly fall into it, through believing that the premiss _was_ verified, though they have forgotten how. But the variety, termed Reasoning in a Circle, implies a conscious attempt to prove two propositions reciprocally from each other. This formal proof is not often attempted, except under the pressure of controversy; but, from mistaking mutual coherency for truth, propositions, which cannot be proved except from each other, are often _admitted_, when expressed in different language, without other proof. Frequently a proposition is presented in abstract terms as a proof of the same in concrete, as, in Moliere's parody, 'L'opium endormit parcequ'il a une vertu soporifique.'

So, some qualities of a thing selected arbitrarily are termed its nature or essence, and then reasoned from as though not able to be counteracted by any of the rest. 'Question-begging appellatives,' particularly, are cases of Pet.i.tio Principii, e.g. the styling any reform an _innovation_, which it really is, only that _innovation_ conveys, besides its dictionary meaning, a covert sense of something extreme. Thus, in Cicero's De Finibus, 'Cupiditas,' which usually implies vice, is used to express certain desires the moral character of which is the point in question. Again, the infinite divisibility of matter was a.s.sumed by the argument which was used to prove it, viz. that the least portion of matter must have both an upper and an under surface (which, as every other Fallacy of Confusion, when cleared up, appears as a fallacy of a different sort, under shelter of which, as indeed in ratiocinative fallacies generally, the mere verbal juggle at first escapes detection).

Such, again, was Euler's argument, that _minus_ multiplied by _minus_ gives _plus_, _because_ it could not give the same as _minus_ multiplied by _plus_, which gives _minus_. So, some ethical writers begin by a.s.suming, that certain general sentiments are the _natural_ sentiments of mankind, and thence argue that any which differ are morbid and _unnatural_. Thus, lastly, Hobbes and Rousseau rested the existence of government and law on a supposed social compact, and not on men's perception of the interests of society, which, however, could be the only ground for their abiding by such compact if a fact.

3. In Ignoratio Elenchi, or, the Fallacy of Irrelevant Conclusion, the error lies not either in mistaking the import of the premisses, or in forgetting what they are, but in mistaking what is the conclusion to be proved. Sometimes, a particular is subst.i.tuted for the universal as the proposition needing proof, and sometimes, a proposition with different terms. Under this fallacy come the cases, not only of proving what was not denied, but of disproving what was not a.s.serted; e.g. the argument used against Malthus (whose own position was, that population increases only _in so far as not kept down_ by prudence, or by poverty and disease), that, at times, population has been nearly stationary; or again, that, in some country or other, population and comfort are increasing together, Malthus himself having a.s.serted that this might be so, if capital has increased. Similarly, even Reid, Stewart, and Brown (not merely Dr. Johnson) urged that Berkeley ought, if consistent, to have run his head against a post, as though the non-recognition of an occult _cause_ of sensations implies disbelief in any _fixed order among them_.

BOOK VI.

ON THE LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

Many complex problems have been resolved through the use of the Scientific Methods, and thus only. The most complex of all problems are the problems relating to Man himself; and of them those concerned with the Mind and Society have never been scientifically resolved. They can be rescued from empiricism, if at all, only by being submitted to some of the methods already characterised as applicable to science in general. Which of these methods must be selected, and why; what are the causes of previous failures; and what degree of success now is possible or probable, will be considered in this book, when a preliminary objection (_based on the theory of free will_), that men's actions are not, like other natural events, subject to invariable laws, has been first removed.

CHAPTER II.

LIBERTY AND NECESSITY.

The theory of _free will_, viz. that the will is determined by itself, and not by antecedents, was invented as being more in accordance with the dignity of human nature and our consciousness of freedom, than _philosophical necessity_. The latter doctrine, in laying down simply that our volitions and actions are invariable consequents of our antecedent states of mind, and that, given our motives, character, and disposition, other men could predict our conduct as certainly as any physical event, states indeed nothing which is in itself either contradicted by our consciousness, or degrading; yet the doctrine of causation, as applied to volition, is supposed, from the natural tendency of the mind to imagine falsely that a mysterious constraint is exercised by _any_ antecedent over the consequent, to imply some state of dependence which our consciousness does contradict. Moreover, the erroneous notion that something more than uniformity of order and capability of being predicted is meant, has been favoured by the use of the ambiguous term _necessity_ (which, it is true, commonly implies irresistibleness), to signify simply that the given cause will be followed by the effect subject to all possibilities of counteraction by other causes. Most necessarians have been themselves deceived by the expression: they are apt to be partially fatalists as to their own actions, with a weaker spirit of self-culture than the believers in free-will, and to fail to see that the fact of their character being formed _for_ them, that is, by their circ.u.mstances, including their own organisation, is consistent with its being formed _by_ themselves, as intermediate agents, moulding it in any particular way which they may _wish_. The belief that the _wishing_ is excited by external causes, e.g. by education, casual aspirations, and experience of ills resulting from our previous character, can be of no practical harm, and does not conflict with our feeling of moral freedom, that is, of power, _if we wish_, to modify or conquer our own character.

The ambiguity of the word _motive_ has also caused confusion. A motive, when used to signify that which determines the will, means not always or only the antic.i.p.ation of a pleasure or a pain, but often the desire of the action itself. The action having finally become by a.s.sociation in itself desirable, we may get the habit of willing it (that is, get a _purpose_) without reference to its being pleasurable. We are then said to have a confirmed character.

CHAPTER III.

THERE IS, OR MAY BE, A SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE.

Any facts may be a subject of science, if they follow one another according to constant laws; and this, whether, although the ultimate laws are known, yet, of the derivative laws on which a phenomenon directly depends, either _none_, as in Meteorology, or, as in Tidology, _only_ the laws of the greater causes on which the chief part of a phenomenon directly depends, have been ascertained, and not those of all the minor modifying causes; or, as in Astronomy (which is therefore called an _exact_ science), both the ultimate laws are known, and also the derivative laws as well of the greater as of all the minor causes.

The science of Human Nature cannot be exact, the causes of human conduct being only approximately known. Hence it is impossible to predict _with scientific accuracy_ any one man's acts, resulting as they do partly from his circ.u.mstances, which, in the future, cannot be precisely foreseen, and, partly, from his character, which can never be exactly calculated, because the causes which have determined it are sure, in the aggregate, not to be entirely like those which have determined any other man's. But approximate generalisations, though only probably true as to the acts and characters of individuals, will be certainly true as to those of ma.s.ses, whose conduct is determined by general causes chiefly; and they are therefore sufficient for political and social science. They must, however, be connected deductively with the universal laws of human nature on which they rest, or they will be only low empirical laws. This is the text of the next two chapters.

CHAPTER IV.

THE LAWS OF MIND.

By the laws of mind (i.e. as considered in this treatise, the laws of mental phenomena) are meant the laws according to which one state of mind is produced by another. If M. Comte and others be right in saying that, in like manner with the mental phenomena called sensations, all the other states of mind have for their proximate causes nervous states, there would be no original laws of mind, and Psychology would be a mere branch of Physiology. But at present, this tenet is not proved, however highly probable; and, at all events, the characteristics of those nervous states are quite unknown; consequently the uniformities of succession among the mental phenomena, which undoubtedly do exist, and which are not proved to result from more general laws, must be considered as the subject of a distinct science called Psychology. We can ascertain only by experiment the simple laws of Mind, such as--1.

That a state of consciousness can be reproduced in the absence of the cause which first excited it (i.e. that every mental impression has its idea), and--2. That these secondary mental states themselves are produced according to the three laws of ideas. But the complex laws are got from these simple laws, according either to the Composition of Causes, when the complex idea is said to _consist of_ the Simple Ideas, or to chemical combination, when it is said to be _generated by_ them.

Hartley and Mr. James Mill indeed hold _all_ the mental phenomena to be generated by chemical combination from simple ideas of _sensation_, however unlike to the alleged results; but even though they had proved their theory, employing the Method of Difference, and not only the Method of Agreement (which latter itself they have used only partially), we should still have to study the complex ideas themselves inductively, before we could ascertain their sequences.

The a.n.a.lytical enquiry (neglected alike by the German metaphysical school, and by M. Comte) into the general laws of mind, will show that the mental differences of individuals are not ultimate facts, but may be referred generally to their particular mental history, their education and circ.u.mstances, but sometimes also to organic differences influencing the mental phenomena, not directly, but through the medium of the psychological causes of the latter. Men's animal instincts, however, are probably, equally with the mere sensations, connected directly with physical conditions of the brain and nerves. Whether or not there be any direct relation between organic causes and any other mental phenomena, Physiology is likely in time to show; but at least Phrenology does not embody the principles of the relation.